There has been a lot of hype surrounding Black Swan and in particular Natalie Portman’s performance in it. She plays disturbed ballet dancer Nina Sayers and fortunately she does not overact the role, which would have been easy to do.  If anything, she underplays the part so that it’s not clear until the movie’s end exactly what is going in Nina’s mind. This helps achieve suspense and tension. I’m not sure it’s an oscarworthy performance though, as I did feel that her performance was greatly boosted by the film’s own tension increasing techniques; such as the powerful sharp bursts of music and the rapid cutting between shots.

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